-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Google began an ambitious project in 2004 : to scan and index the world 's paper books and make them searchable online .

Nine years later , the company has overcome a major roadblock in its mission . On Thursday , a judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the Google Books project brought by authors who claimed the project violated their copyrights .

By sheer numbers , the Google Books project has been a huge success . More than 20 million books and magazines have been scanned using optical character-recognition technology , making each word or phrase searchable , so snippets of text are part of Google search results .

It also has been a lightning rod for controversy . Google did not seek approval to scan many books that were still under copyright , nor did it offer to compensate authors or publishers in any way , claiming the scans were fair use .

The program does n't put entire books online for free . If a book is still under copyright , search results will only show the brief section that includes the word or phrase searched for and the page number it appears on , along with details about the book itself .

Google compares the system to a card catalog . Books that are out of copyright can be viewed in full and even downloaded , and people can buy books whose authors or publishers are part of Google 's Partner Program .

`` As we have long said , Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age , giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow , '' said a Google spokesperson .

Because the company only shows `` snippets '' of the books in search results , it claims the project falls under fair use . Fair use is an exception to copyright law that allows copyrighted work to be sampled or used in certain circumstances , typically by altering or using the original work in a new `` transformative '' way .

`` The use of book text to facilitate search through the display of snippets is transformative , '' Judge Denny Chin said in his ruling . He said the Google Books program provided benefits to the public .

`` It advances the progress of the arts and sciences , while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals , and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders , '' said Chin .

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The ruling notes that the majority of the books scanned are out of print , and that Google provided digital copies to the libraries that allowed them to scan their collections . The books scanned are also primarily nonfiction titles , which have less copyright protection than fiction .

The Google database is used by researchers , librarians and educators and greatly expands access to books around the world by putting them online . By converting print to digital text , the program has also made it easier to convert titles into more accessible formats , like text-to-speech and Braille .

`` This has been a long road and we are absolutely delighted with today 's judgment , '' said the Google spokesperson .

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Judge dismisses class-action lawsuit against Google 's book-scanning program on Thursday

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Google Book program has scanned millions of paper books , made the text searchable online

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Authors complained the Google project infringes on their copyright